


Tenebris

by GranolaPerks



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Big Bang Challenge, Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge 2014, Demonic Possession, Explicit Language, M/M, Murder, Murder-Suicide, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 07:22:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2613209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GranolaPerks/pseuds/GranolaPerks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam, Dean, and Castiel's lives have been pretty normal. Well, normal for ghost hunters and demon killers and ex-angels all the same. But when the trio gets a call to help a woman from Dean's past with a murderous child, their world flips upside-down. They run for solitude in a house that seems to have a mind, and possessions of its own, while the child waits for them outside. As they wander through the twists and turns of the unfamiliar location, they ponder not only how to get out, but how to get out alive. For The Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge 2014</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tenebris

Four million thanks to my artist for my [Big Bang](http://deancasbigbang.livejournal.com) this year, [sweetnessnarose](http://sweetnessnarose.livejournal.com) [x](http://sweetnessnarose.tumblr.com) and my beta reader, [Chuck's Prophet](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/5117756/) [x](http://red-hot-chili-winchesters.tumblr.com). They're amazing. Link to art [here](http://sweetnessnarose.tumblr.com/post/102572055560/tenebris-fic-by-granolaperks-squidstiel-art).

* * *

 

 

"My cat's dead," the small child, about thirteen, shouted from where he sat on his bedroom floor. His mother was downstairs, and he scurried to move the dead carcass and sit where the pool of blood had formed in the carpet when he heard her footsteps moving up. He tried to move the cat into a less mangled position, hiding the lacerations over its body the best he could before she saw.

She showed her head over the top of the stair railing, down on the landing a few steps below where the child was. "He is?"

The child nodded, pointing to the dead body.

She sighed. "Ben, how did this happen again?"

He shrugged and she walked up the four extra steps to the floor her son was on, kneeling down to prod at the cat with the pen she had from what she was doing downstairs. Re-filling her phone book, Ben assumed. He had ripped it apart to feed to the animals, just to see what would happen, and she had bought a new book when they were out getting him a new pet.

His past three cats had died, and his dog had been so seriously injured that they had to put it down, but his mother continued to buy and find him new pets, afraid of what would happen and the tantrums he would throw if he wasn't allowed a new furry friend.

He hadn't just killed four, however. Neighborhood pets had faced the same torment as his own animals had, and strays weren't even a question. He shot them on sight with a bb-gun. Sometimes he'd hit their eyes, and watch them stumble around blindly and in pain until they collapsed from stress and he'd drag them inside or into the garage and have his fun. Sometimes he'd kill them straight off, but that was never his initial intention.

"Ben?"

He'd lost himself in his thoughts. He looked up at his mother. "Yes?"

"Do you want to bury this one, or ju-"

"I'll throw it away."

"But hone-"

"I'll do it."

She seemed to contemplate it, willing herself to tell him that he couldn't just throw it away, that it wouldn't be safe, but she wasn't willing to risk Ben growing upset. "Okay. I'm sorry Skittles is dead."

"I'm not."

She didn't even react to that, not even a blink or a blanch of her face. She just stood, leaned forward to ruffle his hair, patting his cheek before leaving to go back downstairs and wash her hands.

Ben got up and looked back at the cat's body. He laughed quietly and went to the window, looking back at his blood stained pants and carpet. He sighed and looked out of the window. There weren't any animals out there now, but there was a person. He'd tried to kill a few of them, people, but they were much harder than animals. A quick slit to the throat, and a cat or dog would be dead, but a human could heal itself much faster, and hold on and struggle much longer than a small animal could.

But they were so much more fun. They loved to scream, and he could muffle their voices and choke them, and watch them struggle as the fear bloomed in their eyes and their cheeks tinted red while the rest of them faded to a translucent state and their fingers, wrists, and ankles grew bloodied from rope burn and digging against their bounds.

They were harder to catch and hold on to, however, and there was always too much scrutiny around missing children, so he didn't have many options or opportunities to take a victim as he pleased.

But there were always campers, and late-night hikers, and loners looking for death and no-one questions them, especially when they're found mangled like in bear attacks, or half gone like they were ripped apart in their sleep. Which, they essentially were.

He watched a few hikers stomp into the woods along the path just a quarter-block from his house. He planned to go out tonight. And tomorrow night. And the night after that. He'd go out and enjoy himself every night of the week. It was his birthday on Sunday, after all. He deserved it.

He turned back to his dead cat, walking forward and kneeling beside it. He reached for his pocket knife, and grabbed its head, beginning to saw at its throat. Blood began to leak from the slit, and he cut deeper and wider, letting the blood flow out over his hand and down his arm, flooding on to the carpet.

His mother was downstairs, flipping through her cell phone, wearily casting her eyes back to the stairway. Her son was probably busy, and she knew that, but she was still afraid.

She hit call when she got to the number she was looking for, and held the device to her ear, still watching the stairs.

"Hello?"

"Dean?"

"Lisa?"

She let out a breath of relief. "Dean. I need your help."

"What is it?"

She snapped her eyes to and from the stairway, biting the inside of her lip. "It's Ben," she whispered, voice barely above a breath.

"What about him."

"He's… He's killing things, Dean. And he's been sneaking out for a while now… I…" She took a deep breath and swallowed. "I'm afraid he may move on to people. I'm afraid he may be a murderer."

Sam was fighting Dean on the other end, trying to get close enough to hear, but Dean shoved him away when Lisa confessed. "Are you serious?"

She nodded, and remembered he couldn't see her. "Yes, Dean. And I'm terrified. I… I don't think it's him, but I don't know. A demon? Something else?"

Sam was making kissy faces at Dean. He smacked his brother away, sending him back and into Castiel, who just pushed him out of his way, stopping momentarily to watch Dean's face intensify more so than it had in years. His eyebrows were knitted together, and his jaw was tight as he spoke. "That sounds right up our alley, huh?"

She tried to laugh, but only gave him a huff. "Yeah. I don't know what you can do, but please; please come help me."

"Yeah, sure."

"Okay. We're in Louisiana now. Just outside of Forest Hill."

Dean wanted to pause and ask her why she'd moved, packed up her life in her wonderful home and left, but he didn't really care that much at the moment. "Text me an address. We'll be there as soon as possible."

Dean could hear Lisa's smile when she replied, but he knew she wasn't really that relieved. He could feel her stress through the phone. "Thank you so much, Dean. Really."

"Don't thank me yet," he replied, then hung up, turning his screen off. He looked up to Sam and Castiel, who were both watching him and his every move, like a brutal tennis match. He narrowed his eyes at them. "Stop watching me like that. We're going to Louisiana."

Dean had stood, planning to go pack a collection of clothes and miscellaneous weapons, but Sam stopped him with an arm bar. "We're doing  _what_?"

"Louisiana. You heard me." Dean tried to push forward again, but Sam kept him back.

" _Why_?" Sam had an incredulous look about him. Castiel stood off to the side, watching the brothers discuss. He always enjoyed watching them argue. It was so human.

"Because Lisa needs help."

Sam rolled his eyes. " _With_? If you didn't know, we're  _kind of_  on a case right now."

"Yeah?" Dean backed away from Sam's arm, giving up on trying to escape. He crossed his arms. "Well Lisa thinks Ben's a murderer, so…" He pursed his lips as he looked around, finally landing his steely eyes on Sam. "It's a  _little_ more important than another ghost."

"But we're dealing with a Djinn," Castiel interjected, aware Dean was probably trying to downplay the importance of what they were doing, but unable to hold back his remark.

Dean rolled his eyes up and knocked his head back to the sky, as if praying for some way to deal with the two men set on annoying him. He looked to Castiel after a moment. "I know that,  _Sherlock_."

"Then why'd you say a ghost?"

"You know damn well why I said 'a ghost'," Dean replied, and Castiel smiled a cocky smile, looking to Sam for confirmation on his righteous-man attitude. He'd told a joke.

Sam grinned at him quickly, but dropped it when Dean managed to shove passed his arm, making his way back to his room to gather clothes. He was going with or without the other two, but he knew it'd be a hell of a lot easier with them. He kept walking, and then heard them fall in step behind him.

He grinned.

They were so easy to win over.

It wasn't like they had much to pack. Constantly living on the road left them with pre-packed bags and guns and salt and whatever else they needed shoved in the back of the Chevy. Baby, as Dean called it. But it was nice to have fresh clothes, so they grabbed a few new shirts and changed their jeans before taking off down the highway, driving far faster than the legal limit, as usual.

Sam had his laptop open, balanced on his knees as he scrolled through his typed documents, screen-shotted websites, and scanned pages from books, trying to find any sort of information on what could be happening with Ben.

Dean wasn't much help in that regard. Sam continued to ask him questions, try to get an idea of what the child was doing, but Dean remained tight-lipped and stoic as he drove. Castiel tried to supplement Dean's silence with his own theories, but it wasn't of much use to Sam.

"You know, Dean. If you want our help, you need to talk to us. I can't help if you don't tell me anything!"

"Really? Then why are you here? Are you just coming along for the ride? You a puppy dog, Sammy? Is Cas your little kitten pal, and you two are pulling a Homeward bound on me?"

"A what?" Castiel asked.

"It's a movie," Sam interjected before Dean could potentially insult him. He looked to his brother. "Stop being an ass. I know you had a thing for Lisa, and you moved on and split ways but there's still history… Whatever. And I know you want to help. But you know what? So do we. Cas and I are here for you, Dean, but you need to talk to us."

"You'll see when we get there."

Sam sighed and closed his laptop, taking it in his hands and holding it over his shoulder for Castiel, who grabbed it and set it down on the open seat beside him.

"Great. Like an unpleasant little surprise, huh?"

"With a golden little bow." Dean stepped on the gas, speeding the car up.

They arrived at Lisa's a little after seven, the sun setting behind them. Castiel was looking out of the window as they drove up, catching a glimpse of Ben looking out of the top story window back at him. Castiel felt a chill through his spine, starting at the base of his skull with his baby-hairs standing on end as the shiver moved down through every bone in his back. His muscles tensed. He wasn't sure what it was, but there was an eerie glint in Ben's eyes, as if there was nothing human left in him.

The boy disappeared from the window, and Castiel snapped his eyes back to the front of the car. "I have a bad feeling about this," he admitted, his eyes narrowing as he turned to look back at Ben's window. He couldn't look away, waiting for the child to reappear.

Dean had opened the door of his car, and Sam followed after, snapping Castiel out of his trance. He left the car as well, trying to avert his eyes from the window as the three of them made their way up to the entrance.

Dean knocked, Sam right behind him with his hand on his gun in the back of his jeans, and Castiel beside Sam.

Lisa opened the door with feigned confusion, and all three of the men were curious as to why until they saw Ben appear at the bottom of the stairway leading to his room. He watched his mother for a moment, judging her expression and attitude toward the men before he actually decided to look at who they were.

He narrowed his eyes immediately. Dean Winchester, his mother's lover and his bastard of a potential father, paired with his brother and some shell of a creature shoved into a vessel. The smoke had warned him of the third man. Castiel, they called him. An angel. He didn't look much like one. His aura didn't match the ones that smoke had shown him. It's as if he'd left or simply ran out of juice.

He could probably kill him, if he really wanted to, Ben decided as he cautiously paced toward his mother, stopping behind her. He grabbed the back of her shirt. "What are they doing here?"

Dean looked down at Ben, trying to give him a smile, but the darks of his eyes were cold and burning in to him like ice, and he had to look away, back up to Lisa. "Well," he started, trying to formulate an explanation that wouldn't get him or Lisa killed. He didn't know what was going on, but that child was no longer a child. "We were just driving through, and I remembered that Lisa had told me you guys had moved. I figured we'd stop in and say hi."

"You've said hi. Now leave."

Lisa looked back at Ben, who was staring at the men as if trying to ignite them by sheer will. She tapped his shoulder. "Ben," she warned, though her words didn't hold much threat. "Be nice."

Ben didn't say a thing, just tightening his hand in his mothers shirt and narrowing his glare at the Winchesters and their angel.

Sam cleared his throat, waving at Lisa. "Hey. Remember me?"

"Sam," she nodded. "And you're Castiel?" she asked, looking to the man with his backward tie and half-off trench coat and suit. He had to have been hot, she thought.

Castiel nodded once. "Yes."

"Dean's told me a lot about you." She stepped back, much to Ben's detest, and gestured them in. "Come on. I'll get you guys something to drink.

She left them in the living room to leave to the all took a seat on the plush floral-patterned couch she had angled at an L to a love seat of the same pattern, and a chair across the glass table, making a square around the television.

Ben sat in the chair, still watching over the men who tried, rather uncomfortably, to make conversation with him. The was an air around the boy, however, like a chill breeze from an incoming storm, and it left them breathless and unable to say anything to him, every word cut off with his blank glare.

It was like standing feet away from a fire on the other side of a chain link fence, the flames licking between the gaps, and you're stuck just waiting for it to melt the metal and come rushing at you. They couldn't move or look away for long, however, too entranced.

Moths, Ben decided. They were moths. And he would burn them as the light they couldn't keep away from.

Lisa came back with tall mugs in her hands, the handles of all clutched between her fingers, and she had to peel them away carefully to hand them out. She seemed uneasy when she sat down, as if she wasn't sure what Ben was thinking, as if that was the most important matter in the room. But she wasn't wrong to feel that way. Ben had a power within him that shook all of those in the room to the core.

Lisa let them sit and drink in silence, not even attempting to break the palpable silence in the room. Dean was the first to speak, clearing his throat and setting down his glass on a magazine. "Bathroom?"

Lisa leaned forward and looked to their destroyed downstairs bathroom. Ben had broken the toilet, causing the floor to flood. "Uhhh, you'll have to go upstairs," she finally said, sitting back on the couch. "It's to the left once you're up there."

"He can't use my bathroom," Ben said flatly.

"Where else is he supposed to go?"

"The yard."

Lisa seemed to have found her will. "Ben. No." She turned to Dean. "Feel free to go upstairs."

Dean nodded with a slight smile to her, and made his way quickly up the stairs. He didn't think he'd have such easy access to Ben's room, but he knew he'd have to move fast and stealthily, because Ben could pop up if he took too long, or check to see if any of his belongings had been moved or taken. Most thirteen year olds weren't so keen on cataloguing everything in their rooms, but he was sure Ben was anal, especially with the way he was acting. He was the opposite of how he had been when he was younger.

He didn't have much that wasn't broken. Mutilated, would be the word to use, with dolls with chopped hair and cut off heads and gashes in their bodies. They were hidden behind a large toy-car ramp with a garage and a city a child could push the toys through. Sam had one similar to it when he was younger, but their father had sold it when they decided to pack up and move again.

Dean snapped out of his reminiscing. He needed to focus. He careful moved the cars Ben had on the tracks running around the miniature city, nudging them just enough to see inside of the little houses. A hex bag, a voodoo doll––absolutely anything he could find that would explain Ben's actions and attitude.

But nothing. He found nothing that could explain how the teen had become such a monster.

Dean frowned and decided to head to the bathroom, standing in there for a moment before flushing the toilet and then turning on the sink. An alibi for himself, he decided, though if he had been caught snooping there wasn't much he could pull for his defense, and a lawyer wouldn't do him much good. Sam, maybe, could try to defend him, but Ben would probably kill the group of them before they even had the chance to pretend they hadn't done wrong.

He snapped out of his thoughts, realizing he'd had the sink on for a little too long. He turned it off, turned around to tug on the hand towel hanging from a rack to make it look used, and then proceeded downstairs.

"That took you a while," Ben said. He and Castiel were sitting in the living room alone, Sam off exploring with Lisa, showing him her new garden. Sam was feigning interest, waiting for Lisa to explain what was going on. And she did.

Dean swallowed and moved to sit beside Castiel. "Uh, yeah," he responded, rubbing his belly as he relaxed on the couch. "Gas station hot dogs really do a number on me." He licked his lips. "But they're so good. I can never resist."

Ben just rolled his eyes, sending Dean straight to hell with his glare. He knew he was a bullshitting liar, investigating him and his mother in their happy and free life. Whatever. He was going to die anyway.

Lisa and Sam returned, Sam now informed on what was going on, and that there were three animals buried under the new new flower garden, which had previously been destroyed by Ben ripping the plants out for his makeshift graves. Sam's hands had a bit of dirt on them, scratched under his finger nails, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Ben noticed. "You showed Sam the garden, Mommy?"

Her eyes widened and she nodded. "Oh, yes."

"Did he like my flowers?"

There wasn't much more than baby plants, half-wilted from not being watered enough, but she knew that wasn't what he was asking about. "He didn't look at them for long; he dropped some change in the dirt and wanted it back."

"That's why he has dirt under his nails?"

Sam crossed his arms, uncomfortable at how much attention Ben had paid to his hands, how much detail he was able to draw in such a short time. He curled his fingers into his sides, looking to Dean, but not for too long. He squinted his eyes briefly before relaxing back on the couch. "Your flowers were very pretty," he muttered.

"Always the plant lover," Dean added, quirking the corner of his lips up in a smirk that was quickly dropped when nobody responded aside from just staring at him. "Just stating facts," he muttered, clearing his throat and relaxing back on the couch, letting his hand fall on Castiel's thigh.

The room was deafening with silence, compacting the air and making it stiff to breathe. They sat for another five minutes, looking around the room and at each other, avoiding Ben the best they could. Dean cleared his throat, done waiting. "Whelp," he began, slapping Castiel's thigh, sitting up. "I think it's best that we got on our way, huh?"

Castiel and Sam sat up as well, and all three of them stood, Lisa following them up to walk them to the door. Once they were outside, she stopped and leaned against the peeling frame. It really needed to be painted, but she was afraid to do anything with Ben around for fear that he wouldn't like it.

"Thank you for coming," she said, not too loud, but not quite mute enough to make Ben think she was gossiping. "I don't know if you found anything," she muttered, leaning in to hug Dean. "But please try to help me."

"I think I have an idea." Dean pulled back and smiled, patting her shoulder gently before leaving with a wave, Sam and Castiel already by the car.

"You have an idea?" Castiel asked, once they were inside the car. His hearing was beyond a normal human's, but nowhere near what a true angel could tune in on. He missed his powers.

"Not a fucking clue."

When they'd returned back to their motel, Castiel shed his trench coat and suit jacket, falling back onto one of the parallel beds, loosening his tie even more than it already was. "What's wrong with the boy?"

"I was hoping you could tell me," Dean responded, falling down on the bed beside Castiel. He let his hand rest on his thigh again, and it wasn't questioned.

"I don't have the powers I once had, Dean. I can't see what's inside the boy."

"But can't you still sense it?" Sam questioned, sitting on the opposite bed, reaching down to start unlacing his heavy boots. "Whatever's in him? A demon, or otherwise…"

"There's nothing in him."

"Nothing that you can sense?"

"Nothing at all." Castiel sounded distressed with his last admission, and Dean squeezed his thigh harder, aware that he was stressed not only about Ben and what was wrong with him, but also his inability to help them as much as he wanted to.

"Let's let Cas relax," Dean said to Sam. "He's pretty stressed––We're  _all_ pretty stressed," he corrected, shifting his gaze to Sam, hoping he would see some deeper meaning to his words, catch the innuendo in his voice.

Sam rolled his eyes, staring to re-lace his boots that he was so relieved to finally have off. "I'll be back, then."

He always hated leaving when Dean gave him that look, deserting them so he could do as he pleased with Castiel. It wasn't like Castiel didn't enjoy it, or that he was forced into it. Not at all. Dean may be an asshole, but not really enough of one to force himself on another, let alone someone he was so close to. But Dean seemed to use him for his own pleasures and nothing more, as he did with most of his conquests, while Castiel's feelings for Dean ran much deeper.

His brother could be an asshole, that was for sure, and it usually didn't bother him. But he didn't want Castiel to be hurt in the end. He was still his friend.

Sam continued to wander around the unfamiliar town, taking in the ancient brick walls and the dimmed flickering lights spaced evenly along the street. The sidewalks and roads were eerily quiet, entirely empty. Maybe it was weird to him, to finally be in a place where the world called it quits when the sun went down, where there was silence in the night. But something else felt off to him, and it wasn't peaceful.

He returned to their motel room an hour later, as he always did. He hoped that they would be done. They usually were but there was always that risk of walking in on his brother pounding another man into an unfamiliar bed, and that was something he could always do without.

Dean was passed out, dead asleep when Sam entered the room, Castiel near the coffee table in the far corner, folding his destroyed clothes, a fresh outfit on.

"Hey," Sam said plopping down on his bed. Castiel smiled but he was rubbing his eyes. "Tired?"

He nodded and set his clothes down, moving to sit on the edge of the bed were Dean was well and solidly asleep. "It's a weird concept, feeling exhaustion. I now understand why you two were upset when I'd wake you in the middle of the night. Sleep is a wonderful thing, yet so hard to reach…"

"Can't sleep?"

"Not at all."

"I have some pills…" he offered, wishing to help Castiel in any way he could.

Castiel fell back down on the bed, laying beside Dean, his hands straight by his sides, head pointing to the ceiling. "Those won't do any good. I'll just lay here until something happens."

Sam had removed his boots. "Then you can wake Dean and I in an hour or two." He placed his shoes together against the edge of the frame, turning to lie on his bed. "If you need anything, let me know."

"Dean said the same thing." They both looked to the sleeping mass of man, curled and wrapped around the pillows and blankets as if there was no other place he'd rather be. The burn mark on his chest apparent, his anti-possession tattoo long gone. Sam moved his hand to his own chest, feeling the small scar from where his had been seared off.

It wasn't the most pleasant experience to go through, fighting with all of their might to avoid possession. The wiccas fighting them were strong, with support from whatever the hell kind of spells they had used on themselves. There was darkness shrouding them, a darkness that Sam and Dean didn't have a chance against.

All they wanted, however, was to make them vulnerable. For another day, perhaps, but regardless, Sam had felt naked ever since it was gone.

Castiel spoke again, snapping him from his thoughts. "He always says that, but I can't help but to feel that he never means it."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Why do you let him do that to you?" He was frustrated with it all, having it build up for moths and never being able to say anything. But he tried not to let it show. His voice was tense from the struggle.

"Do what?"

"You know what."

Castiel sighed, moving his hands from his sides to his stomach, linking his fingers in an arch over his abdomen. Sam watched them move with every rise and fall of his breath. "Because he needs to be happy."

"So do you."

"I am."

"If you say so."

Castiel sighed once more. "I enjoy it, and so does Dean."

"If you really consider what you two do together enjoyable, I won't argue with you… But I think you're lying."

Castiel didn't say anything, so Sam rolled over with his back toward the ex-angel and closed his eyes.

When he was awoken an hour and a half later by Dean, he wasn't surprised. "Where's Cas?" he muttered, rubbing his eyes and sitting up.

"Scouting."

"For what?"

Dean didn't respond to him, but Castiel came back into the room just moments later, a thin layer of mud on the bottom of his shoes.

"The boy appears to be preparing to leave. We need to go now."

Dean tossed a gun at Sam, which he was unprepared for, along with a few bullets. He took his own sheath of bullets, and worked on loading his own gun after Sam's was full. "Looks like we're hitting the road again, Sammy."

"Yeah," Sam responded, begrudgingly pulling his boots on and lacing them for what seemed like the twelfth time that day.

They didn't drive out to the forest near Lisa's house. They knew Ben would see or hear them. If they had known that their arrival to their motel would be the last time in the Impala, Dean would have spent one last time running his fingers over the dark and smooth leather, weathered and worn from loving use. He would have played his favorite Zeppelin tape and cruised around with Sam and Castiel in the seats beside him, windows down, feeling the tires roll smooth beneath them and the engine purr in the night down the deserted highways they always favored to travel.

But they didn't know, and Dean deserted the keys to the car on the coffee table in the corner of their motel room.

Ben had left earlier than them but not by much. He had seen the creature the Winchesters hung around peering about his home and into his windows, trying to keep himself hidden but failing miserably. He knew at that moment that they were coming for him, and that they wouldn't leave him alone until they found out what was wrong with him, what had him so different than he was before.

But it was nothing more than aging that had changed him. Your actions from birth to death were never that different in motive, just execution. They just couldn't accept that, nor that some people liked different things. Some liked raising kittens, some liked killing them. Potato, potahto. Same thing, in the end.

"Are you sure he's gone?" Dean asked at the edge of the forest, feet on a path leading in, eyes peering into the deep. The toes of his boots edged into the mud.

"I'm sure he's left," Castiel replied, recalling never seeing the boy inside his home, and Dean nodded, though he didn't move for what felt like elongated minutes.

Sam eventually pushed passed him, tired of waiting for the other two to make a move, entering the dark with a solemn face and no fear. It pulled the other two in, and they left behind the town and all of their belongings but two guns with their rounds of bullets, and the clothes on their backs.

Ben was waiting. He always waited. It was his favorite game. The suspense always grew progressively throughout the evening, each human passing never knowing that their lives could be at stake. There were always hikers and campers and explorers who went out in the late of the night to investigate the forest when it was the most quiet, hoping to find serenity or solidarity. They were usually his favorite, always so unsuspecting. He'd leave most of them alone tonight.

He was overjoyed when he head a set of three footsteps coming down the leaf-covered path. The Winchesters and their pet were talking as they passed him, completely unaware that they were making this so much easier for him. They were idiots. He grinned, creeping forward to stalk after them, ensuring they were on the right path, and then darted off to where he planned to lure them this evening.

"So do we have any idea of where he is?" Sam asked after they'd left the beaten path that led through the forest and along campsites. They followed any sounds they heard or misplaced footsteps they found, winding through the underbrush, never keeping track of their path. If they had been asked where they were, they wouldn't have a legible response to give. They were purposely lost.

"Nope," Dean responded, pushing a limb from an Evergreen out of his way.

"Then why are we out here?"

"Following clues."

"What clues," Sam muttered, pulling his lips into a frown and rolling his eyes up to the tree covered sky, only a spattering of stars flitting through the thick blanket of leaves and needles above.

"Those clues," Dean replied, pointing toward an orange glow deep in the woods, clearly a fire. It was either Ben or just an innocent camper that they could warn off. Either way, Dean and Sam moved their hands to their guns, prepared for anything.

Castiel smelled it first. It was one of the foulest scents he had ever come across in all his millennia of living, and he had lived through the bubonic plague. Sam smelled it next, the foulness of it burning the inside of his nostrils. He couldn't help but to wrinkle his nose and squint his eyes.

Dean ignored it.

He wished he hadn't.

In the clearing where the fire was burning was in fact, not a campsite with a wooden fire stacked like teepees, but a haphazard stack of mutilated and decaying bodies, all lit aflame. They were disintegrating in front of their eyes. An arm, skin weak from the burns and muscles just the same, fell from a man's body near the top of the pile, disappearing behind the stack.

It reappeared moments later around the side of the stack, in the hand of a boy with dead eyes and a grin unlike any Satanist, demon, or underworld creature could possibly procure. Lucifer himself couldn't look as harrowing as the boy did now.

"You came." His voice was flat, and it sent a chill through all three men, one that wouldn't leave.

Dean swallowed. "Ben… Wha-"

"-What am I doing?" he asked with a raised eyebrow, as if he knew every question the men would ask of him. He wandered around the backside of the fire once again, allowing the brothers to remove their guns and aim at the boy when he reemerged from the other side. He stared at the guns for a moment, then tossed the arm back into the fire nonchalantly, as if it were just a twig, strolling to the men. "You really think you could kill me that easily?"

Dean shot before Ben could even think to say another word. His shoulder knocked back, sending the bullet through the boy's chest. He just looked at it, staring down at the hole slowly closing in on itself, no blood in sight. There was still a rip in his shirt, however, and he frowned. He tugged on the loose fabric, frowning at it. "This was a new shirt."

"Don't kill people, and maybe you won't ruin your clothes." It was the best Dean could come up with, but he knew he sounded stupid. He grimaced internally, whipping himself on the back.

" _You're_ the one who messed it up. And now  _you're_ the one who's gonna pay."

"What? Five dollars?"

Ben shrugged, then turned his eyes to the three men, finally looking up and away from his shirt. His eyes were dark and cold and hollow, his skin growing ashen seemingly at Ben's own will. His voice was empty when he spoke. "More or less."

He advanced on the men, a single step, and they all stepped back. "What? Are you  _afraid_ of me?"

"No," Sam said bluntly.

"Never will be," Dean added, standing taller.

"I'm a little bit frightened," Castiel admitted in a low whisper to Dean, who's face went blank for a moment. He shook his head in mild disappointment.

Ben grinned maliciously, stepping forward once, twice, three times, stoping to grin once again before lunging at them. They jumped back, now at the edge of the clearing on the border of the woods, dense forrest behind them and flame in front. Ben laughed, voice echoing in the trees.

"You are just too fun."

"So are games. Wanna play one?" Dean narrowed his eyes, aiming the barrel of his gun straight at Ben's head. He pulled the trigger, hoping with all his might that the bullet would travel as fast as it possibly could, and at least knock the boy cold so they could escape, maybe call Bobby and figure out what was wrong with him. He wasn't a boy anymore, that much was apparent. Dean didn't even think he was human.

The bullet shot through the barrel and out across the empty night, hitting Ben straight in the forehead, going all the way through and out the back of his skull. "Go fetch."

Ben didn't even move, and for a moment Dean thought he was dead and that this was all over, and that a headshot would do him in, just like it would a zombie. All three men backed up until they were in the trees, where they began to run as fast as they could muster away from the monster of a child, as still as stone where he stood. They didn't care if he was dead or not. They wanted to get away.

It was futile.

"I'm coming for you, asshole! That hurt." Footsteps soon followed, light and fast. Inhuman.

"Left," Dean muttered, hoping the others could hear him. They did. With a sweep they turned left and were headed through an all new path of trees and bushes and roots. They took turn after turn, through trees that grew thicker and wider, losing their leaves to coat the ground and blanket their enormous roots jutting from the soil.

And bigger and bigger they grew until the foliage once covering the sky was gone and the pale moon and deep blue sky lit their way through massive piles of obstacles. The trees thinned and the roots shrunk as if they were afraid of what was on the outside of the dense forest, and the crowded jungle it felt like they were running through turned into a plain. There were scattered leaves blown out of the forrest by the occasional gust. They flitted about the open land, but never quite came close the the largest object in the area, circling around it as if it had its own gravitational force, and the leaves were moons and stars forced to stay by it.

A house.

Not a home, no. It wasn't lived in, and it looked like it hadn't been so in decades, but there were locks on the doors and the three men hoped they could find sanctuary in there from the rampaging child close behind them. Any ghouls or souls possessing the place would be much easier to deal with than the boy.

They darted up the short and wide and weak set of stairs to the main entrance, shoving the door open with a creak and slamming it shut behind them, Dean pressing his back solidly against the ancient wood.

Castiel and Sam were breathing hard, watching out of the two dust-covered windows just feet from the door, when Ben jogged out of the woods, acting as if he'd just been out for a late night bout of exercise. He slowed his pace gradually until it was a steady walk. He stopped once he reached the patio with the wide steps and creaky wood that looked as if it should have shattered under the weight of the three men.

He didn't come closer, didn't raise his feet to take another step, and Dean narrowed his eyes. "What's he doing?"

Ben stared at them for what seemed like hours, though barely only a minute passed, and then he let his muscles move, his lips curling up in what seemed like slow motion, his teeth gradually being exposed tooth by tooth until the child was grinning his malicious grin once more, his dead eyes matching his cold smile.

He raised his hand, held it up as if he was signaling them to stop, to halt, to cease, and then curled his fingers down like a fist and straightened them again four times, evenly paced through each one, never moving faster or slower.

He was waving.

The grin stayed as his arm fell back down by his side, and as if the simple motion of bone and flesh and muscles moving through air had caused a sonic boom, all of the locks in the house clicked shut, those upstairs and behind the home echoing through the hallowed wood.

Dean spun around and lurched for the handle while Sam and Castiel made for the windows. Sam tried to pull his up to no avail, fighting as hard as he could make it move, willing it to just budge even a little. And with all of Castiel's strength, he couldn't manage to shift the window from its sill by even a millimeter.

Dean, wanting to do something, jiggled the doorknob repeatedly, hoping it would loosen and turn, but it wouldn't be. He gripped the handle as tight as he could and turned it as far as he could manage. He yanked hard on the door, but the solid wood wouldn't budge, and the well-worn metal just shifted back into place on its own, digging into his skin.

He turned to his brother and the angel they both had grown to care for so much over the years. "We're trapped."

Sam wouldn't have any of it. He shucked off the outermost layer of his clothes over his shoulders, balling the fabric of his favorite jacket up over his fist before swinging at one of the windows with as much force as he could muster, his muscles straining from the exertion he wasn't prepared for. His fist bounced off the glass, the undissipated force resonating through his arm and his body, throwing him back from the window, almost as if he'd ran into a fence.

He stumbled back, falling against one of the rounded edges of the stairway's handrails. Splinters dragged off into his shirt, barely grazing his skin and he cut his palm as he gripped the wood to keep from falling flat to the ground. "Damn it," he muttered, shaking his fingers out with a grimace as he stood upright. He wiped the blood off on his jeans, leaving streaks beside previous blood stains that had been faded by numerous washes over the years.

"Don't punch it," Dean scolded, walking deeper into the house, finding a loaded vase on an end table with long-dead flowers in it, spiderwebs strung between the dried and fragile stems, but no spiders in sight. He picked it up and spun it in his hand, then tossed it up and caught it, grinning at Sam as if he knew how everything was supposed to be done. "Throw shit at it." He took a quick few steps forward, like throwing a shot put, to build up momentum and then threw the vase with as much force as he could muster at one of the dust covered and dirty windows.

It bounced off the glass with just as much momentum as Dean had thrown it with, if not more, shooting right back at his head without even a crack in the fine porcelain. It conked him in the forehead with a dull ring, and he fell to the ground, landing on his back with a hard and booming thud.

"Fuck," he groaned, curling over on to his side.

Sam let out a monotone, barely audible chuckle as he stepped to Dean, holding his hand out to help him up, his fingers shaking as he couldn't control his laughter.

Dean took it. "What are you laughing about? You're not supposed to chuckle when you're trapped in hell."

"I always thought you said you'd laugh on your way down to hell?" Sam pulled Dean to his feet, and Dean knocked him with his shoulder.

"Yeah. That was until I went there."

Sam rolled his eyes and followed behind Dean, who had Castiel by the wrist, dragging him away from the door that he had been intently studying since Dean had stepped away from it minutes before. They moved deeper into the house, away from the light of the moon shining down and into the darkness. If there was a way out, they weren't going to find it by standing like statues.

"Where are we going?" Castiel finally asked, keeping one hand out against the wall to his right on Dean's request, while Dean kept his left out to map the path they were wandering down, hoping to find a different door to turn out of.

"You ask that like you think I know this house."

"I figured you might have some plan…"

"Nope."

Sam sighed. "He just needs to find a place to sit down and think," he said to Castiel, attempting to explain it. "He can't do anything when he's upset."

"Why's he upset?"

"Probably because he hit himself with a vase."

" _Or_  because we're trapped in here," Dean growled out, tightening his grip on Castiel's wrist out of frustration. "Something you two seem to not understand, or not care about."

"We always get out," Sam replied, utterly nonchalant. He didn't like being trapped, but it wasn't like it was their first time in a situation like this. Ghost houses weren't really anything to call home to your mother about. "I'm not too worried."

"Maybe you should consider that extreme luck," Castiel said with a warning tone in his voice, "rather than an undeniable facet of your job."

Sam and Dean squinted their eyes, furrowing their brows.

"You don't think we'll get out?" Sam asked.

Dean was still leading them solemnly forward, eyes stoic.

"I don't know. I tend to trust you both, but Dean seems rather at odds… His insecurity leaves me w-"

"Insecurity?" Dean's grip on Castiel's wrist tightened to a nearly unbearable pressure. Had he been a weaker man, he figured his wrist would have fractured. "I'm not insecure."

"Your reaction to the word says otherwise."

Sam grinned and Dean growled.

"Shut up."

They all fell silent, nothing but their footsteps and the creaking echos of the ancient wood beneath them filling the void of silence.

Sam frowned after a while, previously lost in his thoughts. "It feels like we've been walking forever. No way is this house that long."

"Maybe we're just walking slow?" Dean suggested, aware that his steps were more shuffles than strides.

Sam looked back, noticing nothing but black and the ever-faint glow of the window, which could be covered completely by holding his pinky up in front of it. His frown deepened "I… don't think so."

Dean looked back, Castiel following his gaze, both noticing the lack of light. The moonlight from the window looked like a farm light, miles off in the distance.

"That is a considerable distance from where we started," Castiel commented, still in awe at the immense lack of light.

Dean watched the window for a few moments longer, then turned back, continuing his shuffling down the hallway, trying consciously to keep them small, just to reassure himself that the length of time they had been walking was proportionate to his steps. "Well it can't be much longer to the end, then."

But there had to be more. Dean knew it. Not once along the way had his hand faltered from the wooden wall covered in aged and peeling wallpaper, one he assumed to be floral or stripped, as most ancient houses seemed to be. No indents and raised bumps for doors, nor gaps for open hallways. Just flat, peeling wall.

It was as if someone had answered a prayer from all of them when it happened. But instead of them taking a step and floating up toward the heavens and out of the inescapable house, they fell down. Dean's foot hit a ledge and he tumbled forward, dragging Castiel with him, who, in addition, grabbed Sam for support that didn't come.

All three fell from what seemed like nothing to a distance they didn't know, crashing to the ground like dominoes on top of each other, Dean at the base. He kicked to shove Sam off, but left Castiel where he was over his back, unwilling, and partially unable, to get up. He groaned. "Jesus…"

"Last time I was on top of you, you said that."

Sam whined and sat up properly, crawling for a few steps before picking himself up to his feet. "I  _really_ didn't need to hear that. Especially not from  _you_ ," he said, steeling his glare on Castiel.

"You know what happens in our private life," Castiel added, looking at Sam with raised eyebrows and stern lips, as if he were a teacher lecturing a grade-schooler. "Why is it such a bother to hear about it?"

"Because I like to pretend it doesn't happen." It was far too dark to see much of anything, but he looked toward where he assumed the two were still in their pile. "I guess I'll be the one to look arou-"

As if the house decided to become a home once they had fallen, there was a rug and an end table stationed to his right, which he caught his foot under. He stumbled a few steps forward until he came in contact with a wall, much more flat than the one before, almost as sheen and smooth as glass aside from the nub smashing into his palm. He pushed himself up from the wall and the nub moved under his hand, raising up, causing a dim glow to emit from a hanging chandelier in the center of the room.

Sam spun to look at the two on the floor, who had separated in awe once the light began to shine, and were gradually making their way to their feet, eyes wide and unblinking.

"Nice find, Sammy," Dean commented, voice low as he rotated around, looking about what looked to be the main room, despite that they had made their way to the back of the house.

A caramel glow coated the room and its near-ancient artifacts, illuminating the dust particles in the air and the cobwebs that decorated each nook of the furniture. It was cozy, like a light night in fall where fire had been lit in the fireplace and you sat in a padded chair with a blanket and a book or tea or hot drink of your choice. Dean remembered those nights he had with his mother as a child, where she'd read to him and hold him, and for the first time that night, he felt at peace.

"Wow. I could live in here."

"Let's not get too cozy, yeah?" Sam replied, moving away from the wall and the end table with its rug beneath it, both of which he held a grudge against. His kicked his feet, trying to get the rug he'd tripped on to lay flat. He beat it into place, and scowled at it one last time, finally satisfied. His feet moved across the solid wood quietly as he walked, not even a creak coming from beneath his boots. Just the calming sound of gentle footsteps.

There were doors on two sides of the room, with three doors on the longer wall, and two on the shorter with a fireplace in between. Another wall held windows that peered to the outside, but were covered by heavy drapes. The boys didn't want to pull them open, afraid of what they would find, or not find, behind them. The last wall was bare aside from photographs and aged wallpaper that looked out of place in the unloved and unoccupied house. The most bothersome, however, was the lack of exits from whence they'd fallen.

Sam headed toward the center of the room. He stood beneath the chandelier, with crystal raindrops hanging from each curved arm. Thick dust coated the entire thing, and Sam squinted curiously. "How are these bulbs eve still alive?"

"Don't question it," Dean responded dully, as if his answer was just a afterthought muttered on cue, no thought added to it as his wide eyes roamed around the room, his body following dutifully after. "You might jinx us."

"I don't think it works that way," Castiel uttered, reaching for Dean's wrist, keeping close to him.

As the pair of them moved to the center of the room, Sam moved further to the wall, specifically the fireplace. He was drawn to it, curious of everything lining the upper lip. Dull snow globes and faded photographs, with nothing in them but trees or barely-visible silhouettes, lined the brick, with a dust-covered stereo nestled on the end, its antennae jutting out precariously, as if it had been broken and then jammed back into place.

"Check this out. It's ancient," Sam commented, stepping closer. He'd always been fond of antiques, though he'd never admit it to Dean. He was always curious as to how they had made it through all of those years without breaking. "I wonder if this old thing still works."

There was a low hiss from the speakers the moment Sam's words fell from his lips, dust falling from the stereo as it seemed to boot up on its own.

Sam cocked his head and squinted, a small and disbelieving smile on his lips. "No fucking way."

Dean stopped just slightly out from under the chandelier in the center of the room. "Sam, be careful around that thing."

"What for?"

The speakers hissed again, and music began to come out. It was filled with static at first, but grew to a level of clarity where the words were understandable. And none of them could believe what came out.

' _Turn around- Every now and then I get a little bit lonely and you're never coming round…'_

"What?"

' _-Turn around- Every now and then I get a little bit tired of listening to the sound of my tears…'_

Sam narrowed his eyes, no longer watching the stereo with joyous curiosity. "What the hell-"

' _-Turn around- Every now and then I get a little bit nervous that the best of all the years has gone by...'_

Sam was growing frustrated. "No, really. What the he-"

' _-Turn around. Turn around. Turn around.'_ The song was skipping on itself, the volume gradually raising with every word spoken until it seemed that the radio was yelling at him.  _'Turn around! Turn around!'_ Bonnie Tyler's voice screamed the words in a distorted sort of way, and he finally caved in, afraid to anger the radio any further than he already had.

He spun around and one of the end tables, the one opposite of where he had tripped earlier, rattled and shot it's drawer out and across the room at him, slamming him in the stomach. He curled over, and to mock him, the radio changed songs.

' _Fuck you! Fuck you very, very mu-uu-uuch...'_

"This isn't funny!" Sam yelled, though Dean and Castiel seemed unable to control their laughter. The radio continued to play the song, and Sam whirled back around on it, then turned slowly about the room, looking for any sign of anybody or anything that could be controlling the music or the other things in the room. "How the hell are you doing this?" His stomach still hurt, but damn it! He was going to get to the bottom of this.

' _It always feels like, somebody's watching me, and I have no privacy...'_

"Are you watching me?" The song continued, and he sighed, looking to Dean and the ex-angel standing behind him, afraid to move toward them and away from the radio. "God… This is some Twilight Zone shit."

A familiar bass rift grew from the speakers, and Sam's face fell flat, his eyes narrowing and his lips thinning into a grimace. "Don't you fucking dare." He turned back to the radio.

' _Help! I'm stepping into the twilight zone, this place is a madhouse, feels like being cloned'_

Sam groaned, tipping his head back, giving up and stepping to the radio. He slammed his fist down on top of it. "Shut up!" It didn't seem to effect the radio and it continued to play merrily. "Shut up! Shut up!"

The song playing dropped dead and a harrowing screech flowed from the speakers, dust beginning to fall out and into piles on the ground, followed by black smoke flowing as though this were a concert, and the edge of the fireplace were the edge of a stage.

Sam's eyes widened, and he stepped back, well aware of what was pooling up in front of him. It was pointless, however. The black mass was free, and it shot to Sam in the blink of an eye, filing into him with no permission, and futile resistance from the body.

Sam's head was tilted back, and it snapped forward once the mass had entered him completely. He turned to the pair behind him and blinked.

Black.

Dean swallowed. "Sammy?"

Sam smiled, but it didn't feel like Sam. "He should have known better than to hit me. I don't much appreciate abusive relationships."

"Fuck."

"Now now, we should probably watch our language," Sam said, his voice smooth and soft, yet stern. Like a mother's. "We don't want to offend anybody."

Dean's lips curled in on themselves and his eyes grew hard, his shoulder rising and his back stiffening. "You get out of him," he ordered, voice low and hard.

"Well where would I go?"

"Back to hell?"

"Mmm, tempting proposition," whatever was in Sam said, taking a few slinking steps forward. Dean backed up, pushing Castiel with him, realizing for the first time that he needed somewhere to go, somewhere to hide from his brother and whatever was using him as a fur coat. "It's just not as cozy as your brother."

Sam shook his hips from side to side slowly, feeling each vertebrae in his spine move against each other, his muscles tightening with each rock. "Mmm, he  _is_ cozy. But you, Dean…" Sam walked forward, and his eyes flashed black. "Oh, you look so. Much. Better."

Dean backed up more, pushing Castiel behind him, walking in tandem back toward the wall with nothing on it. He clenched his teeth and reached for his gun. "Sorry Sammy," he whispered, cocking it and shooting at his brother's leg, trying to knock him down and slow him, not kill him.

"Run, Cas!" Sam had fallen to the ground, and they had three options: Try to break the unbreakable windows, go to the left, or run forward.

He chose to run to the left, leaping over Sam just to get to the center door. He ran with his arms outstretched, grabbing for the handle before he was even close enough for it to be logical. The moment his fingers touched the smooth metal, however, he was turning the knob and thrusting the door open.

He turned around while he waited for Castiel to enter, and caught a quick glimpse of Sam strolling toward them. He slammed the door shut, and began barricading it with all he could find, including rusted towel racks and soap dishes with soap so dried it was practically glued to the porcelain.

But Sam didn't even bother trying to open the door. He just stood outside of it. "Good job, dumbass. You're in a bathroom." He stretched though Dean and Castiel couldn't see it, and forced out a fake yawn. "It's okay. I'll just wait here."

"Yeah you do that," Dean growled through the door. "And while you're waiting, why don't you get the fuck out of my brother?"

"Are you gonna open up that pretty mouth for me?"

Dean shook his head and closed his eyes, stepping away from the door and into Castiel. "Not something I ever wanted to hear from my brother."

Castiel put his hands on Dean's shoulder, his fingers heavy over the curve of them, tips resting on his collar bones. "Calm down, Dean. We'll find a way out, and we'll find a way to get Sam back safe."

"I know we will. I know," Dean replied, turning under Castiel's hands, reaching up to grab his face and kiss him, pressing him into the wall harshly. He pulled away when he was satisfied. "I'm stressed. First Ben, now Sam…"

"It'll be alright."

"You sure about that, hot shot?"

Dean squinted his eyes at Castiel, who's head was cocked, looking at Dean.

"Yeah, what makes you think you're  _ever_ gonna leave?"

They turned, almost comically slow, toward the direction of the voices, which seemed to echo off of the solid walls. In front of them were their reflections, but not how they had last been seen. Dean had his arm around Castiel's shoulders, but the mirror seemed to disagree with that position, leaving them separated with smirks on their lips, looking directly at their counterparts.

Dean backed up flat against the wall. "What the hell?"

"It's me, you dumbass. Can't you tell your reflection from someone else's?" He blinked at the glass, staring in utter befuddlement. "Oh look, numb-nuts here lost his words."

"How the hell is this happening?"

"Because it's not actually happening," Castiel's reflection interrupted. "It's all just a figment of your imagination, that your brain has procured due to rampant insanity brought on by being thrust into a world in which you-"

"Babe, shut up. I don't think he understands it."

Real Dean held up his hand. "Okay hold on. Babe?"

Dean's reflection crossed his arms. "Yeah. Well, we fuck, right? I guess he just sorta became mine over time."

"I never really went to anyone else," Castiel's reflection added, turning to Dean's reflection. "It just took you some time to come around."

"Who else was I gonna go to? You're great, babe."

Real Castiel sat curled into himself against the wall, Dean's arm still loosely over his shoulders. Dean looked to him, then back to their reflections, then back to Castiel, trying to piece together what their reflections were trying to say.

"Are you saying we end up together?"

"Well, we did," Dean said. "But we're not dumbasses, so it's not that surprising. You two will probably just skirt around it for the rest of your mortal lives."

"And we'll continue to copulate like rabbits," Castiel's reflection added, and Dean's reflection grinned.

"Damn right we will, babe."

"You two make me ill," Castiel muttered, utterly upset over the situation and his inability to leave. The reflection's grinned.

"What? It's not like you two don't do it."

"Yes," Castiel agreed with Dean's reflection. "But we don't talk about it nor advertise it for the world to see and hear. It's our own personal affliction."

"The world?" Dean was beginning to grow rather tired of hearing his own voice. "It's just us four in here. Who the hell else is gonna hear us?" The reflection shouted the last statement.

"Me," Sam sang from outside of the bathroom door, and Dean groaned deeply and slammed his head against the wall behind him. Castiel curled into him just the slightest bit.

"Why don't you all just shut the fuck up and leave us alone?"

"Nah."

"Nope."

"I'm not feelin' it," Dean's refection replied, atop the other two.

Dean collapsed to the ground and Castiel slid down beside him, scooting close to whisper in his ear. "There has to be a way out," he reassured him. "Every room always has two exits. We just need to find the second."

"What are you saying to him?" Castiel's reflection inquired.

"Yeah, you know secrets don't make friends," Dean's reflection added.

Dean smirked, glad he had the upper hand in their bizarre battle for once. "He's telling me about all the ways we're gonna fuck when we get out of here and the fuck away from all of you."

"I'm vanilla," Castiel's reflection said. "I can't possibly imagine how many ways there would be to fornicate."

"Babe," Dean's reflection said, reaching out to grab one of Castiel's reflection's hands, his other hand going to cup his cheek. "Call it fucking. Stop being so proper."

"That's just how I speak, Dean. Those are the words I know."

"Then maybe I need to fuck a new vocabulary into you."

Castiel had his eyes roaming around the room they were trapped in, taking in all of the ornate details on the tile across the floor and up half of the wall, doing absolutely all he could to avoid listening to or taking part in the conversation happening in front of him.

"You've tried that before, and it's never quite worked."

"Pretty sure you said that the first night we were together, when I got drunk and pulled a line on you."

"You always used pickup lines. You  _still_ use them."

Real Castiel's cheeks tinted pink. The first night he and Dean had been together intimately had been when Dean was drunk and Castiel was stressed, and the two of them were both willing to use each other to relieve some tension. All it took was Dean to be just a little too drunk and utter a line that had Castiel reeling. Five minutes of talking had led them to the bedroom, and it'd seemed like nothing but just stress relief ever since.

He didn't want to think about it, so he rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, trying to will his cheeks to cool down. There was an indent up there, one it took a few moments to properly map out in the dim light. It was a square, raised at least a quarter of an inch up from where the rest of the ceiling lay flat.

Castiel reached out to grab Dean's thigh, and then his wrist, leaning in to Dean, quickly snapping his eyes away from the potential exit so the reflections wouldn't see. He wasn't entirely sure they could do anything to it, but he felt like staying safe rather than ruining their chances at escape.

"Dean," he whispered once he felt Dean was paying attention. "If you look to the upper right corner above the shower, there's a way out."

Dean narrowed his eyes, as in disbelief, and then rolled his eyes to look over at the ceiling.

His eyes immediately widened and he snapped them away. "Oh thank god."

"You know God's not real, right?" his reflection said, and Dean's lips thinned into a fine line.

"You'd wish there was one if there was a way I could strangle your ass."

"Well, you could just wrap your fingers around your own neck and go to town. I think I'll get the message."

Dean snarled and stood up, pulling Castiel with him, who looked utterly confused as to why they were standing without a plan laid out.

"And what do you think you're doing?" Dean's reflection asked.

"Getting the fuck out of here. I can't take any more of you."

"I  _am_ you, sweetheart."

"You wish," Dean snarled back, well aware that what he was saying was a complete lie. He had no idea how the house he was in worked, nor how a version of himself, nearly exactly the same as him physically, had materialized in a mirror with all of his thoughts and emotions engrained. All of his memories and feelings… What the mirror  _could_  have said would have destroyed his image that he'd spent so many years of his life building up, would have exposed how he felt and what he thought…

He didn't want to count himself lucky so fast. He still had to get up into wherever the mysterious ceiling hatch went, and hope that his reflection had no way to follow him. ' _Just stay silent,'_  he willed to the mirror.

They had made it into the shower before their reflections showed up again. "Where are you going,  _doll_?"

Dean turned back to look at his reflection once more. "I'll give you two guesses."

"You do know that hole in the ceiling leads to the attic, right?" Castiel's reflection mentioned, and Dean's reflection hit him on the back of the head.

"Don't tell them that, dumbass."

"It doesn't matter," Castiel added, being hoisted up on Dean's knees to reach the ceiling. "We'd go anyway, regardless of what was up there. Even if it was just a crawl space that would barely fit the two of us, you could bet everything you'd ever touched in your life that we'd still go up there, just to get away from you."

He pushed the square of the roof up and into the attic, hearing it slide across the splintered floor. Dean pushed up with his knees and wrapped his hands around Castiel's ankles, pushing him up into the attic. Once he was in, he turned around and held his arms down for Dean to grab on, then helped pull him up.

"See ya, asshole," Dean called down before sliding the raised square roof piece back into place. The attic was bathed in darkness, their eyes taking a few moments to adjust to the black before the dim moonlight faded in through the cracked and beyond dirty window on the far side of the flat wall, illuminating everything in the room degree by degree.

"I'm thankful we're away from them," Castiel breathed out, finally seeming to relax beside Dean, though relaxing for him still meant a stiff spine and formal language use.

Dean fell onto his back, stretching his legs out in front of him as he lay on the bare wood of the floor. It was the first time he'd really properly had a chance to sit since they'd entered the house, and despite the possibility of spiders, or really any other sort of creature crawling around on the ground, attacking him for intruding on their space, he still remained laying.

Castiel, meanwhile, continued sitting up, appearing to look around the room, studying his surroundings, though he was really just looking at Dean. He finally gave up his facade. "Down there," he started, beginning to release his thoughts on what had happened in front of the mirror, and what their opposites had said. "We were together."

"Mhmm," Dean responded, really not wanting to dive into what Castiel was aiming toward.

"And we got together the same way that they did."

"What are you aiming at, Cas?"

"Do you harbor feelings for me you're unwilling to admit? I won't deny anything my reflection said about me because it's all true." Dean had taken a moment to register what Castiel was saying, but apparently it wasn't satisfactory to the other, and so he spoke again. "I'm… pining after you, as most television show reviewers like to say. I don't much care for admitting it, but I feel that it's out in the open anyway, after what my reflection professed…"

"You dig me?"

"In simplest terms."

"I don't want to… Talk…" Dean muttered, linking his fingers tightly then cupping them behind his head, pressed against the floor.

"I know your objection to discussing feelings so I'll make it easy, just a simple one-word response: Yes or no?"

Dean swallowed. "Yes?" He felt his stomach sink into itself, curling into a hollow pit. He hated this. He didn't want it to happen.

Castiel shifted to his side but he refused to watch, closing his eyes until Castiel was right beside him on his knees, bending to kiss him with hands on either side of his face. His eyelids fluttered open, then back shut.

"I'm glad to know that if we make it out of this alive, a date wouldn't be too strange of a thing to expect."

"You want me to take you out?"

"I can't imagine that  _I'd_  choose anything entertaining."

Dean laughed weakly. "Yeah. Okay. If we get out of this, I'll take you out." He sat up. "We'll have hamburgers and french fries."

"I'm glad to see our evening has been planned out. For now, however, let's explore." He pushed himself to his feet and began wandering off in a direction.

Dean stood himself, and wondered how Castiel could navigate through the barely-lit room so well, and then realized he couldn't when he tripped over something and fell into a stack of boxes.

Dean could hear papers scatter and metal cling once released from their confines, and he moved carefully over to where Castiel was, crouching down beside him. "You good?"

"That was unexpected."

"Aren't all falls?"

Castiel sat to ponder that for a moment, and then shifted to his knees to ruffle through the papers and various objects he had knocked over. "These papers are ancient, it seems." He picked one up and rubbed his fingers over it. "So thick, yet weak and very fibrous. Nice paper. Not really made anymore. And so oddly weighted."

Dean cocked his head and narrowed his eyes in rudimentary confusion. "Oddly weighted?"

"Yes." He held out the paper for Dean to take, which he did. "Do you understand?"

Dean shifted the square in his hands, and then realized it had been folded. He took each end and pulled the away, opening the paper. "It's not weighted," Dean realized once it was laying as flat as it could in his hands. "There's a key on this."

"That's peculiar," Castiel commented, reaching to take the paper back. Dean snatched it away. "What's it for?"

"Let me just put on my owl eyes," Dean replied sarcastically. "It's practically black in here."

Castiel pat over his chest and thighs, looking for his cellphone which wasn't there, and then got up as if an idea had sparked in his mind. "There's a window." He walked toward it carefully and slowly, willing himself not to trip over another stack of boxes.

He sat by the light, and motioned Dean to come over. He did, walking just as carefully as Castiel had until he could plop himself down in front of the window. The floor rattled and something clattered to the ground behind him. He turned to look as a skull rolled into view.

He grimaced. "Gross…"

Castiel had been studying the paper. "It's a map, Dean," he discovered, scooting closer to Dean to show him. "Look."

Dean leaned in to study the dimly illuminated paper. His eyes widened. "It's for the grounds here."

Castiel nodded. "And look." He pointed to the map, running the tip of his finger lightly over a path etched in ink. "There's a tunnel. I bet it's supposed to lead back into town. An old mine shaft, I'd assume."

Dean nodded, then pushed himself to his feet, making his way back over to the stack of papers Castiel had knocked over.

"What are you doing?"

Dean had dropped to his knees, skipping his hands through and under the sheaths of paper. "If there's a map of the grounds, there has to be a map of the house. Anything, really. A basic layout, blueprints…." He was furiously unfolding every paper he came across, hoping to find one that felt the same as the other, or held another key or weight on it.

He cheered to himself when he found one, and quickly scurried back to Castiel, praying that it was what they both wanted, what they both needed.

He let out the breath he didn't know he was holding when the markings on the paper came into view, and it was a basic layout of the house with a key stuck to the left corner. It was long and thin with ornate curves and a skull embezzled in the top. Dean peeled it off the paper and held it up in front of the window. They key was of burnished silver, and it glinted it the barely-there moonlight. "I think it's a skeleton key."

"Was it the skull that gave it away?"

Dean narrowed his eyes, and Castiel grinned, his eyes squinting together. He loved those moments when he seemed so carefree and happy. "I just hope it works for every door, here."

They held the map up against the window so that the paper appeared more translucent and the black markings stood out even starker than they would have before. There was an exit in the far corner of the attic, a foldable stairway leading down to the lower floor attached to the attic ceiling. It released the two of them just two rooms and a hallway away from the center where they had deserted Sam.

They planned to go back to him once they were down. They didn't plan for him to be waiting for them, just around the corner of the hallway they were dropped into. The dim, caramel lights were back, illuminating everything around him, and as eerie as it made the house feel, Dean was grateful for the added light, and he relaxed instantly.

Sam, however, seemed rather impatient, his arms crossed as if he'd been waiting for a millennia. "Why do you look so relaxed?" he questioned of his brother. "You assholes deserted me back there. You left me sitting there to talk through the door with Dumb and Dumber, trapped in that cursed mirror. All they did was bitch about how they couldn't leave."

"And so why are you here? That conversation sounds  _so_ enthralling."

Sam smirked and rolled his eyes. "Because I heard you two upstairs; It's not like you were quiet." He took a lumbering step toward the pair of them, who were both eying the map in their hands, trying to find a new way out around Sam. He cocked his head. "What do you have there?"

"Nothing," Dean retorted far to fast for it to be the truth. He grimaced internally. He was an idiot.

"Bullshit. It's a map, isn't it?"

Dean narrowed his eyes, passing the map off discreetly to Castiel, who backed up as Dean moved forward. He was going to look for a new way out, and Dean was going to get his brother back.

"How'd you know that?"

"Thin walls?"

Dean's lips thinned, and he was surprised they didn't permanently stay like that. "Smart ass," he grumbled, eyes hard, boring holes into Sam and into the demon possessing him.

"Thank you," Sam replied, stepping to Dean, the most obnoxious grin plastered on his lips. Sam would never grin like that. "Now, about our little…" Sam knocked his head from side to side, pretending to think of the proper word to use. "... _agreement_."

"And what would that agreement be?"

"Your body," he said, pointing at Dean, roaming his eyes up and down his toned figure. "For his." He looked him in the eyes once again.

"What makes you think I'm going to agree to that?"

"Haven't you already?"

Dean looked back over his shoulder, to where he hoped Castiel was still standing, but he had disappeared into one of the doors along the hallway, nowhere in sight.

Dean swallowed, his dry throat moving up and down. He had one other option.

"Not yet." He looked back for Castiel once more, hoping that he could come to help him, or give him another option. He wasn't there. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs as full as they could go, then squeezed his eyes shut just to remember.

"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus."

Sam's eyes narrowed, and his chest began to puff up, as if he were preparing for battle, or to have an argument he knew he could win. He wanted to look bigger, trying to intimidate Dean. "I wouldn't if I were you."

Dean ignored him. "Omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio."

Sam's chest puffed more, and he coughed, black smoke rolling from deep within him, pooling in his mouth then flowing over to the ground like a waterfall. He closed his mouth and swallowed hard, trying to keep himself inside. "Don't make me do this, Dean…"

"Infernalis adversarii, o-"

Sam growled, deep and low and it gradually grew stronger and louder until he was yelling, pulling Dean from his words, forcing him to stop at the sheer terror of hearing what was coming out of his brother. "I told you not to do this Dean!" Sam lurched toward him, eyes hard and dark, ready to kill.

"Sammy, I know you're in there," Dean muttered, reaching behind himself to pat against his jeans as he stumbled away from the lumbering man.  _Shit_. His gun was gone. It probably fell out while they were running through the woods, of while tumbling down into the main room where Sam was possessed. Sam's clearly wasn't missing, however. It jutted out of the back of his jeans. The beast inside of him didn't seem to care, or notice, that it was there. Sam continued lumbering forward. "You can fight him off, Sammy. Come back, please."

Sam's eyes narrowed and his lips quirked up. His pupils filled with black that leaked outward until everything was dark, and Dean bit the inside of his lip. "Don't kill me," he muttered weakly, aware of how small he sounded, how utterly helpless and frail he felt.

Sam laughed, and it was dark and hollow. No emotion or love. Not what his brother used to sound like. "Oh, I'm not gonna kill  _you_."

Dean's brows knitted together and his forehead wrinkled and he was about to speak, to ask what he meant, when it hit him, and he understood. What the creature had said sent a chill through his spine, one he couldn't seem to shake off. He tried to stop him, keep the demon from offing Sam, but it was too late. Sam had taken a step back, and with a final grin snapped his head too far to the right and up, the vertebrae jutting out in the most unnatural way, as if he'd been hung and the rope pulled the wrong way.

"Sam!" Dean yelled, using all the force in his body he could muster to go as loud as he could, his voice cracking near the end though he didn't stop. "Sammy! No!"

Dean's eyes were saucers and his cheeks were burning red as he fought to keep the levee from breaking, his forehead and temples stinging with the effort it took to hold it back. He scurried forward, and then slammed to a halt when Sam laughed.

His neck, purple from where it was snapped, creaked back to how it was before, to how it should have looked, and his skin was still ashen though he no longer looked dead. His eyes were gone for good, however, and Dean knew that when he caught a glimpse of the black in his brothers eyes, the warm color previously there now gone.

Those eyes had been there all his life, whenever Dean needed them. He remembered Sam, walking into his room with those soft warmths, ready to soothe him after a rough day, or help him with his math, which he could never solve for the life of him. His baby brother, there with glowing eyes, always willing to help, and always willing to sacrifice, was no longer there. Sam was no longer Sam. He was a shell, just a body. He wasn't his brother anymore.

Dean swallowed. "I'm sorry, Sammy," he whispered as he stood to full height once more. "I love you, baby brother.."

The creature with it's black eyes watched Dean, and its grin began to fall as Dean spoke once more. "Omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica."

"If you finish this," the demon warned, already leaking uncontrollably out of his now-dead brother, taking a staggering step forward once last time. Dean didn't stop speaking, still uttering out the chant, his eyes never leaving his brother, now nothing but a literal meat suit. "Your brother will be gone forever."

"He already is." Dean paused, barely letting a breath escape his mouth. "Te rogamus, audi nos," he finished, and the demon let out one final scream, and poured out of Sam, shooting up to the ceiling and then looping back down, where it shot through the floor and back down to hell where it belonged. Sam's body followed it down, collapsing limply on the wood beneath their feet, and Dean ran forward, crumpling to his knees beside him.

He took his head in his hands, and let his eyes properly water for the first time in what felt like years. Sam's eyes were closed, and he refused to attempt to look at them again, knowing that they'd be dull and lifeless, just like the rest of him, and he couldn't stand to imagine his last memory being of that.

But it was his only choice, really. He could never erase what he experienced that night, what he saw and what his emotions were doing, what was saved in his memory for the rest of his life. He didn't want to see his brother's lifeless corpse on the ground, laying there completely against his will, never even having a fighting chance against whatever had been inside of him. He didn't have a choice though. It was burned into the back of his mind for the rest of forever.

"I'm so sorry, Sammy," he whispered, voice shaky and weak and barely coming out. He kept his brother's face in his hands. "I'm so sorry. We should have stayed on the Djinn case. We shouldn't have come here." He sucked his lips together and curled them under between his teeth, biting down hard. He looked at his face, studying everything he had grown to know and love about him once more before giving the lifeless body one last embrace, trying to solidify his apology, hoping that wherever Sam ended up, he would know how tortured he would be for the rest of his life, knowing that it was his fault for all of it. That his death was avoidable, yet Dean thrust him into it.

He moved his knees back inch by inch when he was done, pulling Sam's gun with him as he moved from the body, then pushed himself to his feet, shaky and unsteady. He didn't even know how he was walking, his legs attempting to turn to jello. He shuffled to where he knew Castiel had gone off to, tucking the gun into his pants. The ex-angel stood at the edge of the hall, in front of the final door that direction.

"Sam's dead," Dean muttered, making his way to the other.

"I saw," he replied. "All of it. I'm sorry."

Dean just shook his head, unable to form any words, let alone find a way to speak them or profess them in any intelligible manner. He just shook his head. His brother was dead, long gone from the world with no hope of coming back.

He just shook his head.

Castiel understood he didn't plan to continue speaking, and turned, hoping he would follow as he moved back into the doorway he had just been in before. He stopped once they were in the room, and Dean had the door shut behind him. "We have an issue."

"I'd say."

Castiel swallowed, waiting a few moments before continuing to speak. "Sam, or whatever was in him, lit the main room on fire.

Dean looked up from his feet, which he had been studying. "What?"

"I believe he ignited the fireplace first," he said, raising his shoulder and shaking his head, trying to explain that he didn't truly know what had happened. "And the other artifacts were quick to follow. The room is engulfed." He pulled out the map, pointing around to each room and hallway that he had tried to scope out. "All of this is on fire. There's only one way out I can find."

"And that is?"

Castiel looked up from the map and to his side, and Dean followed his gaze to an old doorway, even more of an elder than the house, with well-splintered wood and virtually no paint, stark in contrast to the papered walls surrounding it. Dean walked forward and looked down. Stairs. Many of them. All just as old and just as splintered as the frame before them.

"Down that?" Dean questioned, though he knew the answer.

"It will lead us to what appears to be a basement," Castiel explained. "It will keep us away from the fire and the smoke for the time being, and there also seems to be a cellar entrance, hopefully one that's not locked."

" _Hopefully?_ "

Castiel's tossed up his shoulders, resignation in his voice as he spoke. "It's our only option."

Dean turned his eyes from the man and looked down the flight of stairs that disappeared into the darkness, like a pit into hell. He sighed. He was already  _in_  hell. What was another layer down?

He stepped wearily onto the first platform, waiting for it to snap under his weight, but it didn't. He took another cautious step forward, and another and another until he was moving down the steps at a little more than a snail's pace. Castiel fell in line behind him.

Each step caused the case to creak, wood bending under their feet until it felt as if it was warping around their soles, rising up to meet them then lowering them down.

Dean reached for the hand rails, feeling woozy, but nothing but his fingers ever brushed against them. "What the hell?" he questioned, taking another step forward, feeling the stair lower just under his foot, the other higher step raising up. He felt as if he were about to tumble, fall forward down whatever was left, of which he couldn't tell in the dark, but the steps reached their apex and the lower one rose and the higher one fell and he was steady for just another moment.

"Perhaps these stairs-" Castiel started trying to gain his balance as the steps rose and fell in front of him. the took a timed pace and was able to remain balanced. "Are similar to the mirror."

"Cursed?"

"If that's what they were."

"Then maybe we need to do what we did with the mirror," Dean commented, the edge of his feet slipping off the step he was on and slamming down onto the one nearly a foot below.

"What's that?"

"Run."

Dean took off down the stairs, sprinting like a child on christmas morning, just wanting to reach the end. His feet slid and slipped over the edge of the steps as if they were made of ice, and Castiel followed behind him, barely able to keep his balance.

The stairs and their waves grew more angry, violently shaking up and down, large hills forming with steps jutting out, both of them men ready to trip.

And they wouldn't stop. Dean felt as if they'd never reach the end, that the waves would eventually knock them down and they'd tumble to the ground with broken necks and lost lives. One of the waves kicked him into the air and then slammed him on the ground, but it wasn't wood beneath his feet. He ran forward from the momentum, and managed to slow himself to a stop when the ground remained flat and still.

Castiel shot down behind him, and collapsed into his side once he was close enough, clutching to his arm. "I didn't think we'd make it down," he admitted.

Dean just nodded in agreement, then looked down at the man by his side. He was still breathing hard, but Castiel looked up as well, and Dean kissed him. He refused to stop once he started, keeping his lips against Castiel's for as long as he could manage.

When they finally broke, Castiel took but a moment to breathe and then spoke. "I'm sorry about your brother."

Dean nodded, breaking his gaze from Castiel to turn and look back at the stairway they had just come down, each step once again neatly placed in a straight slant, leading back up into the light of the room that he could barely see. He knew he could never go back up there. "Me too."

They remained in the compartment they crashed into until they both had recovered enough to continue.

"Is there supposed to be a hallway?" Dean questioned, standing at the entrance to another hall.

"No," Castiel replied, gazing into the same hallway. They couldn't see very far into it, the light from upstairs barely making it to where they stood, but they had nowhere else to go.

"I'll go first then," Dean said, marching stoically into the darkness. He dropped his facade the moment they were bathed in black, pushing his hands out to feel the wall, much as he had back when they first entered the home. He didn't know what he would do if there happened to be a branch in the path. He didn't know the way out, and every step he took made it feel like he was moving deeper and deeper into the labyrinth, and he would never find his way out.

His elbow began to grow sore, and then he grew concerned as to why his elbows had grown sore. "Is the hall getting more narrow?"

Castiel sighed. "Please not again."

"I don't think we have a say in it."

The hall  _was_ getting more narrow. Dean was conscious of it now, focusing on every millimeter his elbow had to bend in, his wrist ticking upward until his palms were flat and his elbows bent in as far as they could go. "Cas, man, I don't think I'm gonna fit any further."

"Then crawl."

"What?"

Castiel reached to grab at Dean's ankles. "There's much more space down here."

"Wha-"

"It balloons out. Much like an hourglass."

Dean narrowed his eyes, but as the hall got more narrow, he figured it was his only choice. He dropped to his knees, shoulders scratching and catching on the solid walls, and began to crawl.

The sound of their shuffles echoed off of the walls, ringing back into their ears until suddenly they didn't. The sound was muted now, barely hitting back into their ears, as if they'd crawled into a tunnel.

And they had.

Dean could barely lift his head as he crawled forward, his hair scraping against the ceiling if he moved up more than an inch. Castiel was the same, and was the first to realize that the ceiling was shrinking as well.

"Dean. It's growing lower."

"Then what do we do?" Dean questioned, arching and stretching his shoulder while bending his elbows down. It was getting lower, and lower, and finally so low that he could no longer lift his hands from the ground. He dropped to his stomach, arms splaying in front of him. "Only one way to go then: going back to the barracks, babe."

"Army crawl?"

"If you can call it that," Dean replied, not used to doing it on cement. The sound began to mute once again, and he was left in a cave barely big enough to hold him. He squirmed on the ground, trying to force himself forward without slamming his hips or his knees or his elbows into the solid walls surrounding him. It was futile. He was surprised he wasn't bleeding at this point.

He finally looked up, and noticed a dim, deep blue light from a distance away. "I think we're going the right way."

"Why?"

"Light, hon."

"How far?"

Dean narrowed his eyes, trying to gauge the distance, but it seemed too far to get to with the ceiling sloping down every inch he moved forward. "Too far." But he kept going, pushing as hard as he could despite the exhaustion he felt in his legs, and how his biceps begged for a rest, tired of pulling his weight.

And the light never seemed to get closer. So he stopped looking, closed his eyes and pushed on.

It was like a whirlwind in his ears when he broke free of the tunnel, all of the noises of the outside world coming in, the echos of the basement sending the shuffles of his arms right back at him. He rolled away once he felt cool freedom on his legs, and lay on his back while he waited for Castiel to join him, his aching bones and muscles celebrating the break they got.

"I've never crawled for quite so far," Castiel admitted, collapsing beside Dean once he was out.

"I don't think anyone has, except the Vietnamese during the war."

"Down in their underground bunkers?"

Dean nodded. "I kinda feel like them right now. Hot, stuffy tunnels… Crawling through them because they had no other choice than to die…" He sighed and looked up, rolling his eyes back and over to where the deep light was coming from.

"Is that the cellar exit?"

Castiel looked back, and nodded. "I hope so."

They took another few moments to rest, and then sat up, moving to the exit to get closer to the light, planning out the final leg of their journey.

There was an underground tunnel on the far edge of the grounds, almost a straight shot forward from where they were. Whether it led into town or not, or if would even be of use to them was a question the both had, and a risk they had to take. They couldn't stay there anymore, and they couldn't wander back through the forest, where Ben could easily be waiting for them, anxious to get to them before they got back to civilization.

Dean looked at Castiel once their plan was solidified. He reached out for his hands. "I do want to be with you, okay? Just so you don't think what I said in the attic was bullshit to get you to shut up. I just wanted you to know that before we got out there. Who knows what's waiting for us? God knows I don't… I just wanted you to know…"

Castiel nodded and leaned in, kissing Dean for as long as he could, not wanting to break it, because breaking it meant it was time to leave, break out of this place and face the unknown.

But wasn't that what they had been doing? All of this time? Not just the hours gone past, nor the days or weeks, but the years they had spent together hunting and searching and defeating things they had never come across, and different variations of the ones they had. It was always new, regardless of whether there was information or not. This time, they had to go into it utterly blind.

"We'll get out just fine, okay Dean?" he said when they broke apart, and Dean nodded, giving Castiel the signal to take the skeleton key from the house layout, and jam it into the nearly-useless lock. There was a distinctive click in silence of the basement, and then an unforgettable creak as they both put a hand on one of the doors, and pushed up, standing in the cool of the night.

Dean let out a breath of relief, and stepped out onto the damp grass. It felt cool through his shoes, and it didn't bother him in the slightest. He was finally out. Finally free.

He grabbed Castiel wrist. "Let's go find that tunnel."

Castiel stepped out of the basement and onto the grass, following just a half a step behind Dean. They couldn't hear or feel the crackling of the house burning behind them, as if the walls were trying to keep it in, deafen it to avoid anyone noticing, but the embers burned bright and illuminated the ground in front of them.

Half orange, half blue. Dean paused and looked back at the house one last time, saying his silent farewell to Sam when his heart froze and his breathing stopped and his muscles tightened to a point where they couldn't even move.

Ben.

He stood at the farthest edge of the house, grinning at the men. "Hi boys," he called across the grounds. He was silent, unmoving. Dean and Castiel inched backwards, not giving him a notion on where they were heading.

There was a subtle glow in front of him, like he was holding a candle, the glow on him as if he were a saint of a child. But he would never be a saint. His arms barely twitched, and the light was gone from his hands, floating across the sky like a lightning bug, in a perfect arch until it fell to the ground.

The small flame, hidden behind a bush, grew, and grew, and shot down the line of the forest encircling the house, engulfing the first few rows of trees and bushes and underbrush in flames. Bed had clearly doused the vegetation in some sort of flammable. He knew what he was doing.

Dean and Castiel backed away faster, Castiel looking behind them to scout out the tunnel entrance, Dean watching Ben, who was swaggering forward leisurely, aware that the men couldn't escape without seriously maiming or killing themselves. He had a cocky grin on his lips and his eyes were as cool as steel. Each step seemed to echo in Dean's ears, despite how light his feet pressed against the damp grass. Ben was gaining on them easily, and Dean's stomach began to tighten. What was taking so long? How hard was it to find a tunnel? His stomach fell into a pit, one he didn't think it would come out of.  _What if it was outside the ring of fire_?

His breathing grew harder and his brow bone grew damp. He wanted to wipe it, clear it away, make himself feel like he was calm, even for a moment, but he knew it'd give away how he was feeling even more to Ben.

"Come on!" Castiel whisper shouted at Dean in hopes that Ben wouldn't hear, tugging hard at his arm. Dean turned to look, and he knew in that moment that it was fight or flight, and they had to run.

He could hear Ben's footsteps thudding across the grass, picking up pace when he realized where the two men were going. "Run!" Dean shouted, not caring if Ben heard or not. He urged Castiel forward, forcing him into a sprint toward the tunnel in the ground.

Peeking over his shoulder would have been his worst idea by far, but he had to know how close Ben was, how much time they had to get in once they were there. He hoped there was a hatch, or a door they could close to keep the boy out. He hadn't thought of him following them in there until this point, and it frightened him to think that he could die in an underground tunnel at the hands of his potential son.

The hole in the ground with piles of dirt surrounding it was growing closer, and Ben was growing even more so. He pumped his legs are hard as they would go and gave it his all, his stomach in so much pain from being twisted in to knots and his abdomen getting more of a workout than it had in years, his thighs screaming in pain and his calfs were about to give in, but he wouldn't stop.

Castiel was the first in the hole, and Dean looked back at Ben right before he jumped in after him over a mound of dirt. It was a set of swinging doors that they landed on, similar to the ones they had seen coming out of the cellar, but much sturdier and more solid, not a gap in them. Castiel pulled up on the handle, and the doors didn't budge.

"Oh shit," Dean cursed, vibrating nervously as he waited for Castiel to grab the skeleton key from indoors. When the polished black was out and in his hands, Dean felt relief, but his worry rose once again when the lock didn't click, and the doors remained locked.

"What the hell do we do now?"

Castiel contemplated for a moment, then, shoving his hands into his coat pocket, fished out the map of the grounds. He shredded it open and ripped the key from the well-aged paper, shoving the key into the lock with all his might and turning it.

Click.

They let out quick breaths, Castiel pulling the key free as Dean opened one of the doors. Castiel jumped in before him, hitting the ground about five feet below, and Dean chanced a look up. His heart stilled as he saw Ben's face over the pile of dirt, his breathing growing short and very rapid, tight in his chest.

Ben's face was blank yet filled with more hate than any man he had even seen in his life. His eyes held no light, just reflecting what was on the inside. Nothing.

Dean jumped into the tunnel with a shout, pulling the door shut behind him. He held one of the handles, and Castiel held the other, pulling them as tight as they could while Castiel tried to shove the key into something, hopefully the other end of a two sided lock.

It clanged against the wood repeatedly until it fit into a hole. Ben's feet startled the both of them as they came down with a booming thud, vibrating the doors and sending an echo through the miniature cave they were in. He bent to pull up one of the handles, and both Dean and Castiel yelled, pulling it shut as fast as they could, Castiel clicking the lock shut.

They fell back to the ground, realizing they had done all they could, and if Ben got in after them then so be it, they were to die. But he grabbed the handles on the outside and shook and pulled and tugged as hard as he could. He slammed his feet on the surface once again, and then there was silence in the cave.

Dean and Castiel didn't move. They were frozen. What was Ben planning? Was he going to catch them at the end of the tunnel, wherever it came out? Was he going to break in, by any means necessary?

They barely breathed. They relaxed after a few minutes, slinking to the ground, but stiffened immediately at the sound of sprinkled padding atop the doors, as if someone was dropping clumps of dirt and raining loose particles down upon them.

The thumping continued, and it struck Dean after a few more drops that Ben wasn't going to come after them.

"He's burying the doors."

Castiel nodded. "Then we should get going while he's busy."

Dean nodded and stood, despite how much his legs protested, trying to keep him on the ground by growing weak and giving up. Castiel marched forward a few feet, and then slammed into a wall. He blinked a few times, then turned another direction, walking with his arm out, palm against the rocks. Dean had his opposite arm out, waiting to see if they came to another side, or entered a narrow tunnel, which they had been expecting.

But Castiel just hit another wall.

And he continued for as long as he could, walking loops around the cave as many times as he felt necessary, hoping and praying that his hands would his a hole and they'd have their way out.

But there was nothing. Just a small, enclosed cave with no way out.

"They must have sealed the tunnel," Castiel said in disbelief, his voice barely there and he placed both hands against the wall, patting around as much as he could, growing frantic over time with his slaps against the rocks. "We don't have a way out."

Dean's heart sunk, just hearing Castiel sound as desperate as he did down there is the sheer black. No light penetrated where they were, and he feared that he may never see the light again. But he couldn't lose hope, not yet.

"Come on." He said, stretching his arms up to feel for the doors. "We can go back out, fight Ben and give it our all."

"We're buried."

Dean paused, but shrugged, and kept going until he felt the door. "Come here. Give me the key.

Castiel was tepid in his movements, but he moved to him, handing him the key. It took a few tries, but Dean managed to force the key into the lock, clicking it open. He shoved up, and the doors didn't budge.

He felt a frown come on his lips, but tried to fight it back. He shoved up harder, and harder, and still, nothing. He gave it one last try, pushing with as much force as he could muster, but the doors didn't even shake.

That's when he collapsed. This wasn't just a game anymore. This wasn't just an extreme version of hide-and-seek, or a haunted house gone overboard. This was it. They were trapped. No way out, no other options.

He laid on his back, staring up at the nothingness around him. He felt Castiel shift beside him, the loose rocks beneath his feet skitter against the ground, and his hand over his.

"We're stuck, aren't we?"

It wasn't so much a question as a statement, but Dean knew he needed to hear the answer.

"Yes."

Castiel took a deep breath and fell onto his back beside Dean. "Our oxygen levels are probably going to drop," he confessed. "And the carbon dioxide we release just by breathing is going to saturate the air in… Less than a day. Twelve hours, maybe."

"And then what?"

"We won't die right then. If there was a way to go, this wouldn't be the worst. We'll be unconscious before anything bad really starts to happen. We won't even be there for our own deaths."

"No?"

Castiel shook his head. "I consider us lucky. Most people would give a lot to die in their sleep."

"I never thought I'd go that way," Dean confessed.

"Neither did I."

They lay in silence, just letting the severity of the situation weigh in on them, how helpless they were and how, no matter how hard they tried, they would never make it out alive. Both of them were going to die in there, and it took laying on the cool stone beneath them, with miniature pebbles and rocks digging in to their flesh, for them to realize it.

They didn't speak for a long while, what felt like hours to Castiel, and years to Dean. He'd lost one family member already and he wasn't prepared to lose another. He had no control anymore, and he didn't know what to do. He wanted to offer comfort to Castiel, calm him and soothe him, tell him it was all okay. But  _he_  wanted to be told that  _he_ would be okay, that his death was inevitable and that there was no use fighting. It was coming whether he wanted it to or not. He wanted to hear that his brother died and went somewhere nice, where he deserved. And he wanted to hear that he'd go to the same place too. He wanted to hear that, regardless of what happened after the fact, that he was dying next to someone he loved and cared about, and that he was lucky to have such an opportunity.

He felt a calming rush fall over him, and he rolled on his side to face Castiel. "I'd like to spend my last conscious hours with you."

"I don't think you have much of a choice."

Dean shifted closer, and reached across his own body, dancing his fingers over Castiel's cheek and chin, mapping out his face before he leaned in to kiss him.

He wanted it to be comforting, but he knew there was nothing to be comforted about. There was no way for him to get out of this, or to help Castiel out of it, and they both had accepted their fate.

So it was a kiss, solely in the interest of just kissing, and being with and near each other, knowing that any moment could be their last. Castiel brought his hand up to cover Dean's, his fingers dancing over the back of his palm, the rest of his hand falling flat. He focused on the smooth round of his right, and his rough and rigid knuckles that lay flat on his cheek.

He focused on Dean's lips just as Dean focused on his, the soft yet chapped skin and the warmth of each other's mouths.

Dean rolled onto his back again, and tugged on Castiel's hand, getting him to come closer and lay on top of him, legs over legs, chest over chest, lips to lips. He felt him, all over. The weight of his body and the way he fit so well against him. He wished he hadn't taken him for granted, that he hadn't accepted his love as just a need for sex and pushed him away, keeping him at arms distance at all times.

He wished he'd had pulled him into his arms and kissed him in the daylight and told him he loved him as much as he did.

He took a deep breath. "I love you."

Castiel had shifted his head to rest on Dean's chest, feeling each breath come in and out. He was trying not to calculate the time they had left, how each and every one of their breaths was bringing them closer to the last one, but it was hard.

He knew Death was coming, and that he was standing at their bedsides, waiting for the right moment.

He wanted to know that moment.

"I'm getting sleepy," he muttered to Dean, who had his hands pressed flat on his back, hoping to hold for as long as he could.

"Me too," Dean admitted with a yawn, and Castiel realized their time was falling fast. He could hear how fast Dean's heart was beating, and he knew it wasn't for him. He wondered if his was pounding just as vigorously.

Castiel managed to get off of Dean, crawling over to one of the walls, hoping to lay against the cool rocks. Dean followed him for the same reason.

They sat in silence with their hands linked together, listening to their breaths echo against the uncaring walls, trying not to fall asleep. It grew harder and harder over time for Castiel to fight his symptoms. He was still sleepy and now dizzy, as if he had an awful head cold. He was afraid to move, his breathing shorter than before. He kept his muscles locked, just listening to every quick breath Dean took.

He laid down when his head started pounding. He tried to hold Dean's hand for as long as he could, but his fingers grew weak and he grew near to letting go. Dean tightened his fingers around Castiel's, and Castiel shook. The warmth from his hand gave him shivers, reminding him of how cold he truly was. He wanted Dean around him again, but he could feel sweat droplets pooling against his hairline and under his eyes and down the gentle curve of his neck. Was he hot? He felt cold. He shivered again, this time for longer, and Dean squeezed his hand.

Dean wasn't shaking. Dean wasn't sweating, and it was an unannounced truth that Castiel would be gone before Dean. He was weaker, for some reason, as if his body shut down the moment he knew they were trapped. A psychological sabotage.

It took all his might, his shaking and trembling muscles fighting it, but he pushed up against the stone back and rolled over on to his other side, falling with a thud. He wanted to look at Dean.

Dean switched his hands and shifted his body, still holding Castiel's hands with one, and his other hand cupping his face, watching him despite not seeing him. He knew it was coming, and he knew Castiel would tell him when it was time.

He didn't speak until the black in front of his eyes began to spot. Bright flashes of teal that faded to green and then to indigo in a mater of milliseconds dotted his eyes, and his ears felt swollen, all sound coming through dampened, as if he had earplugs in.

"I love you," he said to Dean. "I wish we could have gone on our date." He voice was weak and he was trembling more than ever. "I love you. I'll see you on the other side."

Dean nodded, squeezing Castiel's hands tighter, keeping his hand on his face until he felt his eyes flutter shut unwillingly and his muscles relax under his hand. His body was still trembling and still sweating, but Dean knew that he wasn't coming back. He was out cold, and no amount of force could wake him.

He leaned forward to kiss his forehead, beginning to feel his own body start to shake with tremors he didn't want, starting at the pit of his stomach, moving out to his arms and legs.

He let go of Castiel's hands, reaching back to grab the gun he'd taken from Sam. He placed it on his thigh, kissing Castiel on the lips one last time. "I love you. I do. Whether it's…  _love_ love or brotherly love or some mix… I love you, and that's all that matters." He took the gun, holding it with his shaky hands.

He held it away from Castiel's skull; as he normally would with shooting anybody, but his inability to see left him wondering if he'd truly hit him where he needed to. He felt his eyes begin to sting and his hands had been growing progressively more damp. How long had he been waiting? How long had he had the gun to Castiel's head?

He knew how long. It'd felt like ages to him, but it'd been minutes, and he was deteriorating fast. How much longer did he have? It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. He was stuck down here for the rest of eternity, his brother was dead and Castiel was going to be too.

He pushed the gun against Castiel's head. He knew he had to do it. He couldn't let Castiel suffer anymore. He couldn't feel his body tremble or his breathing force its way out any longer.

"I love you," he reiterated. "And I hope you know that. I'll see you soon."

He pulled the trigger without a single moment of hesitation. Castiel choked in two more rapid half breaths, and then he was still. Dean was biting the inside of his lip, and he reached down to feel Castiel's neck. No pulse.

He nodded twice, and then his mind went blank. Their trio was down to one, and he couldn't let that last much longer. He shifted to sit straight, with his head and back flat against the stone wall. He looked up. "I…" he took a deep breath, his limbs still shaking. He hadn't done this in years. "I know I fucked up a lot while I was down here. Shit, I don't think I did a single thing right. But… Whoever the hell you are out there, don't you dare punish those two for what I did. They don't deserve what I do, the hell that I have waiting for me. They deserve happiness and love, because that's all they ever gave to me. Just…" He took a deep breath, raising the gun to his head, the body-warmed metal pressing into his hair. He took one final look around the cave, just giving himself a moment to reflect on his life, all he had done that was good, and so much more that had been bad. He reached for Castiel's hand and took it. His one solitude, the thing that could now never leave him. He squeezed his fingers between his own, and sucked in a shaky breath.

"Just please let them be happy. Please…"

And just like with Castiel, he pulled the trigger without a moment's hesitation.


End file.
